BATON ROUGE -- A proposal to privatize Avoyelles Correctional Center appears to be in trouble, as House members in favor of the measure sought Wednesday to shore up support by dropping a planned sale of the facility.

Louisiana Department of Public Safety and CorrectionAvoyelles Correctional Center

Bolstering the argument that there may not be enough support for House Bill 850, which would seek proposals for privatizing the prison, was Rep. Henry Burns' decision to put off a vote on the bill after stripping language that would have sold the building and land to the company that would take over the prison.

"I think if you have the votes, you move the bill. Apparently, he didn't," said Rep. Robert Johnson, who represents the district that includes the prison and has been the most vocal critic of the privatization plan.

Burns, R-Haughton, said the measure, "certainly has a much better opportunity now" that the prison won't be sold. But he acknowledged that not all of the 61 House members who voted to make the bill more palatable by dropping the sale would support privatizing the facility.

Burns said he will bring the bill back in about a week, after lawmakers have a chance to mull the reduced proposal.

As it stands, the bill would authorize the Department of Corrections to seek proposals to run Avoyelles, though it would be up to the Joint Legislative Committee on the Budget to decide whether to go with any of those bids.

Gov. Bobby Jindal's budget calls for closing J. Levy Dabadie Correctional Center in Pineville and merging it with Avoyelles, then selling the combined facility to a private company. The sale was expected to bring in about $35 million, which would have gone to the state's rainy day fund, and savings of a lower-wage workforce were expected to trim about $7 million from the yearly cost of the facility.

A similar plan proposed last year was shot down in a House committee.

Though the sale is now off the table, the rest of the plan still seems to be in play. But the proposal faces strong opposition from representatives who worry about how the proposal will effect safety, prison programs and the safety and salaries of prison guards.

"They're trying to make profits, they're not worried about safety," Johnson said of the companies who run private prisons. "I invite you to ask (the guards) which is a better work environment for their own safety. They'll tell you a state-run facility."

Given the wages paid to state prison guards, who receive an average about $60,000 in salary and benefits, Rep. Sam Jones said that the state should not be eliminating such positions and noted that if a private company offered to bring those jobs to Louisiana they would qualify for tax incentives.

Johnson argued that the poor jobs offered by prison companies, which pay about half as much in wages and benefits as those put up by the state for the average guard, leads to high turnover and potentially lower quality workers.

"The vacancies in the positions are staggering at Winn," Johnson said, referring to one of the two privately run prisons already operating in the state. Johnson said that while Avoyelles often goes months without openings, the unfilled spots at Winn Correctional Center reach into the double digits in some months, raising potential security concerns.

The bill gives current staff at Avoyelles the first chance at jobs with a private company or elsewhere in the state correctional system.

Rep. Jim Fannin, whose district includes the Winn Correctional Center, said he has not heard of any problems with the facility in his area.

"If there were problems there, I assure you I would have been called," said Fannin, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and a supporter of the bill. Fannin said the money from the privatization is necessary to help shore up the budget.

Jeff Adelson can be reached at jadelson@timespicayune.com or 225.342.5207.